In a veiled attack at ‘Chinnamma’ Sasikala, ace Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin today said, there will be ‘234 job opportunities’ to open up shortly in Tamil Nadu. “To all the youngsters in TN, 234 job opportunities to open up shortly,” he tweeted. Ashwin’s jibe comes a day after AIADMK had elected Sasikala as the leader of its Legislature Party paving way for her to become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

Earlier in the day, former Union Minister P Chidambaram raised question over the AIADMK’s move. “It is the right of AIADMK MLAs to elect their leader. It is the right of the people to ask if the leader deserves to be CM,” Chidambaram tweeted. “Looking back with pride, TN CM chair was occupied by Kamaraj and Anna. AIADMK and PEOPLE OF TAMIL NADU are now moving in opposite directions,” he said.

Check out Ravichandran Ashwin’s tweet

To all the youngsters in TN, 234 job opportunities to open up shortly.

Former Rajya Sabha MP P Kannan had announced his resignation from the AIADMK. He told reporters here that he did not want to disclose the reason for his quitting AIADMK. But when reporters kept on asking him for the reason, he said “everything is obvious.” The resignation comes at a time when AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala was elected as Legislature party leader at a meeting of legislature party meeting in Chennai earlier in the day.

Sasikala is expected to be sworn-in as the third Chief Minister of the state within two months on Tuesday. The name of 62-year-old Sasikala as AIADMK Legislature Party leader was proposed by Chief Minister O Panneerselvam at a meeting of party MLAs at the party headquarters here. The MLAs unanimously elected her as their leader, enabling her to take over the reins from Panneerselvam.

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Panneerselvam was the stop gap Chief Minister twice, first time when Jayalalithaa was unseated following a Supreme Court order in 2001 and when she was convicted in a disproportionate assets case in 2014. When Jayalalithaa was at the helm, Sasikala was considered to yield a huge clout behind the scenes. After taking charge of the party, she had pledged to take forward the legacy of the former Chief Minister.

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Ever since Jayalalithaa’s death, there has been a clamour that Sasikala should follow the earlier practice of both the party General Secretary and the Chief Minister’s post being vested with the same person. Senior party leader and Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai is among those who have backed Sasikala for the Chief Minister’s post.
In December last year, four state ministers had asked Sasikala to become the Chief Minister, besides AIADMK General Secretary. A resolution to this effect was passed at a meeting of Tirunelveli Urban Jaya Peravai (Forum), led by state AIADMK secretary and revenue minister R B Udhayakumar on December 17. Two days back, Sasikala had appointed senior leaders, including some former Ministers and a former Mayor, to key party posts.